08 September 2009

Round up post on Putting People First of articles on the role of mobile phones in learning, mostly, but not exclusively, in developing countries. The lead article, by Abjihit Kadle, on mobile learning in India makes the point that as devices converge, so will e-learning and m-learning.

2 comments:

Something that I'm not too happy about: service that puts education and astrology on the same mobile screen. Wouldn't the lesser educated be more inclined to really believe in horoscopes? (Or is it just my stereotypical view?) See http://symbian.avinashrathod.com/2008/12/mera-nokia.html

Interesting point. I guess there's an appetite for horoscopes and Nokia are meeting it. The ethics of providing horoscopes. That's a topic!

Having worked on phone navigation projects (as I'm sure you have too) all sorts of things get lumped together in order to produce shorter menus (which make the interface look cleaner but often produce problems for users as they search for things under menus that don't help them navigate). You might argue, logically, that agriculture and ringtones should be separated out too. In fact agriculture (which I believe is an information service) probably fits best with horoscopes, education and ringtones sit, separately, somewhere on their own.

I'm a psychologist and, having worked for many years in the design of user-centred products and services, am now Professor of User-Centred Design at University of Reading, UK.

Why Brain Attic?
In 'A Study in Scarlet' Arthur Conan Doyle wrote: "I believe that a man's brain is like a little empty attic, and you stock it with such furniture as you choose....the skillful workman will have...nothing but the tools which will help him doing his work..."
As we now know, Conan Doyle's analogy doesn't quite tell the full story of the brain but nevertheless this blog is a place for me to store notes that, if not logged here, might be forgotten.